City Council Christine Quinn established a new precedent today when she explained why she walked away from a press conference where a man had referred to the mayor as "Pharaoh Bloomberg."

"If we're gonna have name-calling, I just don't want to participate in that," Quinn said.

Laura Nahmias notes that leaving events when insults are hurled is a new practice for Quinn. It's not the first time she's been present when people have said mean things about Bloomberg, just as she's been present when Bloomberg has said mean things about other people.

It's not perfectly clear what Quinn was trying to do today, actually.

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At that press conference (watch the Politicker video here), it looked as if she sensed an opportunity for a teachable moment about civility, but then got some wires crossed while trying to ad-lib, flubbing her admonishment and then putting herself in the ridiculous position of waiting for an apology from a grown man, before finally ending the agonizingly awkward confrontation by walking away from it.

Quinn is theoretically in a position to make an issue of rhetorical boundaries, as the only woman in the race, and, related, as the target of a particularly ugly bit of incivility in the last cycle. In 2009, a man attending an event for Democratic mayoral candidate Bill Thompson referred to Quinn as a "whore."